Source/Notes: This quote is often attributed to Samuel Johnson and also to Washington Irving. The earliest attribution found so far is to Dr. Samuel Johnson in: "Our Home Magazine and Mothers' Journal, Volume 6" (1841), p. 189. Earliest attribution to Irving found so far, in: "Gone before: being a manual of consolation for the bereaved, and a well of sympathy filled by H. Southgate" (1873), p. 232. This quote is probably apocryphal.